[FRANCE24] A jacket wallah wearing military fatigues went kaboom! near a checkpoint at the entrance to northern Mali's largest city, wounding one soldier in the second attack to hit the same location since Friday, residents and officials said Sunday.

A column of French tanks stood guard along the sandy road leading to the scene, as French and Malian soldiers patrolled the surrounding residential neighborhood of mud-walled homes.

The attack took place late Saturday at about 11 p.m., according to Malian Capt. Daouda Diarra. On Sunday morning, the bomber's torso lay in the scorching sun in the middle of the road, while his head sat in a pile of sand in a nearby wheelbarrow.

"When he leaped over the wall, we fired at him," Diarra said of the suicide bomber. "He then detonated his boom belt."

Cpl. Mamadou Abdoulaye Maiga said other weapons were left behind at the scene, and French forces detonated three grenades Sunday morning.

It was the exact location where an earlier suicide bomber riding a cycle of violence had blown himself up Friday morning, an attack that raised fears the bully boyz ousted from Gao by French and Malian forces could now be launching a new wave of violence.

The Malian military gave no details about the bomber in Saturday's attack, stating only that the young man was Arab and a suspected member of MUJAO - the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa.
Posted by: Fred 2013-02-11